possibility of a draw

[MoriusUshiba]

The rule doesn't address this issue, but there should be a possibility of a draw in these situations, either if the players agree or if the same position is repeated three times, as in chess.

There are positions in the game that are completely blocked if one player plays strictly defensively; the other cannot win.

[RalzMaw]

Maybe I'm wrong but, if there is a draw, the low elo player will get some elo from the other player, right? If so, I'm not very comfortable with that, because forcing a tie isn't that hard...

[MoriusUshiba]

I understand,

There is also the opposite case, the player with high elo does not want to lose so he forces a block and the opponent cannot win and the game can last forever

[Etoclas]

Yes, it can happen because you can shield your leader with your own units leaving at least one free space adjacent to him and stay there.
If your opponent doesn't have leaping/switching/forcing units or if they cannot move your units for any reason, then yes, the game is in stalemate and is "bugged" and players can keep on playing forever, thus possibly causing one of them to surrender because the opponent doesn't want to abandon collectively.

I can't come up with a solution to this though, since you would have to count rounds, and even then, who's going to win?

[CastorT]

Hi there Thank you for the feedback.

We are aware of this case and are looking at it closely. It is true that in some circumstances, if a player is standing their ground in defense and their opponent don't have the right characters to deal with the situation, the game can enter a stalemate.

The game has originally be designed to be played in Strategist/Expert mode, where there is no randomness and "expert" players can counter this strategy via a draft mode with picks & bans (the mode is available as an option on BGA).

But still, I can understand that this might not be enough, both for "expert" players, but also beginners, who can be frustrated to encounter this situation in one of their first games.

We are working on finding a solution that will preserve the game core experience and accessibility.
Thank you again for your help and patience

[bregaladenting]

I would like to suggest a fix to this problem. After a certain amount of time, or a certain repetition of moves, or mutual agreement, the game would move into a "finishing time". There would then be a set time limit imposed on the game (with no extension each turn). After this time has elapsed it would either go to a tiebreak (not sure what parameters yet, least number of movements maybe?) or end in a tie.

[HolyTispoon]

Hi there Thank you for the feedback.

We are aware of this case and are looking at it closely. It is true that in some circumstances, if a player is standing their ground in defense and their opponent don't have the right characters to deal with the situation, the game can enter a stalemate.

The game has originally be designed to be played in Strategist/Expert mode, where there is no randomness and "expert" players can counter this strategy via a draft mode with picks & bans (the mode is available as an option on BGA).

But still, I can understand that this might not be enough, both for "expert" players, but also beginners, who can be frustrated to encounter this situation in one of their first games.

We are working on finding a solution that will preserve the game core experience and accessibility.
Thank you again for your help and patience

I'm not really sure what you mean by "'expert' players can counter this strategy" - it seems like you're saying that playing on 'expert' mode *requires* that you draft at least one character with switching or moving rolls. That's not so much drafting to counter a strategy, it means that the space of opportunities presented by the game seems larger than it is because an experienced player would not they have no choice but to draft one of these characters or else the game stalls. If that's the case it seems to me that it's not drafting to counter anything specific your opponent does, it's just that it's a necessity for any player which 'expert' play mode allows (while 'normal' mode may not) but it's still up to the player to draft the 'right' characters for the game to actually work (i.e. not stall). If that's the case, 'expert' mode doesn't actually solve the problem.

[HolyTispoon]

to clarify my response the way it seems to me the a huge appeal of the game is that there's a huge number of combination of characters you can play with and a big chunk of the fun is to figure out ways to make good use of a variety of combos, and in particular to counter your opponent's team by choosing your own team that has its own ability that may counter them.
But what you're saying is that any team of characters that doesn't have the ability to move an opponent's unit is *not viable* regardless of what team the opponent's chooses. And so in 'expert' mode - no mater who's you're facing and what characters they choose - you *must* ensure you have at least one such character or else your opponent can force a stalemate and your best result can be a draw. You should want to do the same in 'normal' mode as well but in 'normal' mode it's not always going to be possible.
But this is not really 'countering' the opponent strategy and I think that just makes the game a lot less fun because in practice there are much fewer combination of characters to play with. that's of course my opinion but I'm just wondering if you meant something else by your earlier statement or did I misunderstand what you said when wrote that in 'expert' mode you can 'counter this strategy'.

[ValsiN]

Like this:

[CastorT]

Quick update: A solution to prevent these kind of situations is on the way. We are just fine-tuning it to make sure it covers all possible cases at once.
Thanks for your patience and sorry for not replying so often. I'll have more time in the upcoming weeks.